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Chiller Alarming

I am looking for some help guys. I have 2 chillers cooling a glycol loop. One or both can go into alarm and there is no way for anyone to know until they see the effects of a warm loop. They want a visual signal (strobe light) to be installed. I want to monitor each chiller's alarm contact, as well as a close on rise temperature sensor. Now, I could just hook up three relays and if anything 'trips', turn on the light. Or I could put in a time delay, to wait 30 seconds to make sure its a real condition. Or I could put a latching relay that has to be reset so they have to acknowledge it, even if it resets itself. Or I could ....... etc etc. What do you guys recommend? And is there a relay board made up someone has used or knows about to monitor these things? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Customer: "I have a problem with my (Non-Descript Heating Appliance). It's really old (somewhere from 3 to 120 Years?) and it used to make a (insert noise here) and now it makes a (insert new noise here). Is that common with (Non-Descript Heating Appliance)'s ? "

Putting this into a DDC system would likely make more sense unless this is a 24 hour operation. Then you could get email or text alarms.
However you could always use a Delay On Make (DOM) timer in series with the relay that powers the strobe. Also if it resets itself why would you want someone to have to go in and manually reset it - it likely may become more of a nuisance alarm and start getting ignored - especially with your thoughts on temperature rise switches - do these chillers run 24/7 365?

"How it can be considered "Open" is beyond me. Calling it "voyeur-ed" would be more accurate." pka LeroyMac, SkyIsBlue, fka Freddy-B, Mongo, IndyBlue
BIG Government = More Dependents
"Any 'standard' would be great if it didn't get bastardised by corporate self interest." MatrixTransform
My 5 yr old son "Dad, Siri is not very smart when there's no internet."

Chillers Run 24/7/365 Only staffed from 6a-6p They are hooked up to an XL100B (who knows who has the prog files) They would eventually like an alarming option out of the XL5000, but just want a light for now.

Customer: "I have a problem with my (Non-Descript Heating Appliance). It's really old (somewhere from 3 to 120 Years?) and it used to make a (insert noise here) and now it makes a (insert new noise here). Is that common with (Non-Descript Heating Appliance)'s ? "

Ok then from 6a-6p is the only time someone might notice the alarm. I would just parallel your chiller alarm contacts and supply temp sensor(s) into a DOM and then wire that out to a relay for your strobe. That way if any one trips the alarm will go off after the DOM time out and if they automatically reset the alarm resets.

"How it can be considered "Open" is beyond me. Calling it "voyeur-ed" would be more accurate." pka LeroyMac, SkyIsBlue, fka Freddy-B, Mongo, IndyBlue
BIG Government = More Dependents
"Any 'standard' would be great if it didn't get bastardised by corporate self interest." MatrixTransform
My 5 yr old son "Dad, Siri is not very smart when there's no internet."

Customer: "I have a problem with my (Non-Descript Heating Appliance). It's really old (somewhere from 3 to 120 Years?) and it used to make a (insert noise here) and now it makes a (insert new noise here). Is that common with (Non-Descript Heating Appliance)'s ? "

Crab has it. I would only suggest that you make sure that the users are aware of the limitations of their alarm at this point (with no pager/remote warning). That will save a heap of comeback trouble. I am guessing that a monitoring package (of your choice) might be the most cost effective solution in the long run.

gnomethang
_______________________________________________
"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."
- The Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam

I would make sure to highlight possibilities to management, and really determine what they want. A month from now if they decide a strobe light isn't effective enough, you'll be changing it out for something else.

You might as well do a bit more work up front and find those programming files, it'll save you trouble in the long-run from having to do this project 2-3 times.